


Carrots

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: A spot of outrageous flirting, Icelandic Greenhouses, Sick babies are gross, Worldbuilding: Food Production in the Known World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9920468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: Iceland in Y90 is growing premium produce in banks of greenhouses powered by geothermal energy.  A teacher takes her science class of 11- & 12-year-olds through on a field trip and gives them a lesson on sustainable agricultural practices, and how they all participate in the great circle of life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my offering for the letter C in the Alphabet Soup collection.

The teacher ushered the class into the greenhouse. Some of the glass panes in the house were propped open, allowing a cooling breeze through, but was still enough of a contrast to the weather outside for the students to surreptitiously push up the sleeves of their jumpers. The smell of damp potting soil and greenery made some of the students blink with surprise, but most of them managed to keep their studied air of nonchalance.

"Thank you, Svenson, that was very informative," the teacher was saying to their guide, "I had no idea that you have to cover the flowers of the Cucurbitaceae to control their cross-pollination." Kaldi Svenson inclined his head in acknowledgement, even though he knew that she knew all about plant breeding. Rósanna Sandradóttir brought her science class here to Iceland's biggest crop production greenhouses every year. Unbeknownst to the students, he'd asked her out just before they went through the cucurbit house. He had taken quite some relish this time in describing pollinating the flowers very early in the morning before they went flaccid. The innuendo he meant it to have for the teacher's benefit thankfully had gone over the heads of the students.

The teacher calmly looked around at the students, giving no hint that she had caught any of Svenson's innuendo. "Now who can tell me what they're growing in this house, class?"

The students did not meet her eyes, and most of them weren't really looking at the sprays of lacy green leaves tied to tall stakes that lined the long growing beds. A small voice ventured, "Vegetables, miss?"

"Very good," she nodded, "but what _kind_ of vegetables are these? Anyone?" She smiled and looked around at them patiently.

Another long pause while the students looked around at the green sprays. A small voice somewhere in the class emerged, " _Green_ vegetables, miss?"

"No," she smiled indulgently, "but I suppose that's a good try. How about if I give you a hint: they are Solanaceae. No? How about 'tomatoes'?"

That got a reaction, she noted with satisfaction. The students' eyes got round as they looked at the green sprays with renewed respect. Few of her students came from homes that were wealthy enough to afford greenhouse fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.

"My mum says tomatoes are poisonous," a dour boy sniffed from the back. Bjarni-Elvis Ragnheiðarson was pale and perpetually sniffing, always ill with _something_ , even though he was Dagrenning-programme immune.

"Not quite, but the tomato and the potato do belong to the same family as nightshade, which _is_ poisonous. They don't grow deadly nightshade in the greenhouses, though." She had to keep her well-practiced straight face as Svenson pantomimed choking and dying from a tomato behind the backs of the students. She was thinking that maybe she would go out with him after all. Besides, sometimes greenhouse workers got fruits and vegetables 'jumping into their boots' before they went home for the evening. "Let's move on," she said. Rósanna allowed Kaldi a small smile and a batting of the eyes from behind the backs of the students as they moved through the door to the next house.

The students wrinkled their noses when they entered the next greenhouse. The warm damp air was redolent with a rank smell of excrement. One of the workers was wearing mask and gloves, spraying down a freshly planted bed with brown liquid from a spray nozzle. "Oh, _gross!_ " "Okay, who let one out?" "Ewww, Ragnheiðarson!" "Wasn't me!" "First one knew it, blew it!" The students teased one another. The teacher herded them quickly down the side of the greenhouse toward the back, where another bed was being harvested.

"Who can tell me what was being sprayed onto the beds at the front of this house? Anyone?" The students were staring at the teacher incredulously. "Well?," she asked.

"Smelled like poo, miss," Anna-Frida Jónsdóttir said quietly, looking out shyly from below her blond fringe. She almost had whispered the word, 'poo.'

"Yes, that's right, very good, Anna-Frida, it was indeed POO," the teacher said loudly above the whispers and nudges of her charges. "And where does the excrement come from?" The whispering and nudges became louder. The name Ragnheiðarson was bandied about by several, making the blond boy very cross in his denials indeed. Rósanna continued above them, "All of us."

That got their attention again; she knew she had them. "Our school participates in a waste recycling programme to help with the sustainability of the food production in Iceland. All of our food waste is composted and the output from our toilets and sanitary bins and wastewater is treated and used as fertiliser." The students were grimacing as they squirmed and cast uncomfortable looks at each other. It was one thing to put the leftover bits from their lunches into the bins in each classroom. It was quite another to think of their waste being used in their food.

Miss Sandradóttir swept her hand over the pile of harvested carrots they were standing next to, then picked one up by the green leaves and held it up. The greenhouse grew premium carrots, far superior to the ones people could scratch out of Iceland's poor soil in their home gardens. She held up the carrot dramatically and delivered the key line of the science lesson, "Our food comes from MUD and BLOOD and POO!" She took a big bite out of the carrot and chewed it with a big smile.

Whoops, she'd forgotten to set up the pre-cleaned demonstration carrot ahead of time; this one still had gritty potting soil on it. Svenson was wincing in sympathy. Oh well, score one for science, she thought as she tried to avoid crunching her teeth into the gritty bits, while beaming at her students like this was ambrosia she was eating. Other than the grit, it _was_ a very nice carrot. "Svenson," she smiled, "this is an excellent carrot, I must say. Are these going to the market later?" 'Can you please arrange for some to jump into your boots?' is what she didn’t say out loud.

"Oh, _these_ are a special consignment, Miss Sandradóttir," Svenson said with a grin, blithely sweeping his hand over the pile showing them to the students. "These carrots are going to Reykjavik, for the ship Túnfiskurinn. Their captain is especially fond of carrots, and she makes sure there are always plenty on every voyage." The students stared at the carrots with renewed respect for the salaries of sea captains. 

Rósanna nodded, but noticed that he picked half a dozen from the harvest pile when the students were moved on to the next greenhouse. She surreptitiously wiped the egregious dirt from the one she'd taken a bite from and shoved it into her handbag. Kaldi had noted it, and was smiling and inclining his head at her as he held the door open to allow her through. "I _do_ like a nice root, even if it's a little _dirty_ sometimes," Rósanna said innocently and ran one finger teasingly along his arm as she passed by.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll leave it to your imagination whether these two hide the carrot later.
> 
> (Yes, I know tomatoes are botanically a fruit. I couldn't make it work in context.)
> 
> Ragnheiður Bjarnadóttir named her kid Elvis? Well, yes she did, and after her dear old dad, too.


End file.
